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FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS | FCNP.COM

LOCAL

JULY 23 – 29, 2020 | PAGE 5

Downtown Project to Impact Parking for 8 Months, Rather Than 2 Years

Continued from Page 1

Creative Cauldron Theatre troupe and the satisfaction of residential neighbors to the site on Lawton Street behind it.

Under the new plan, Insight purchases the City parking lot and includes it in its 3.16-acre project. The issue is not so much the price, which is currently under negotiation, but the impact on the two restaurants currently there, plus the State Theatre, all of which depend on the ability of customers to have access to that City lot.

As far as the overall project’s fiscal impact on the City is concerned, the projection said it will provide net annual tax revenues of $1,542,317 to the City, significantly up from the range of $793,000-to- $1.1 million projected in the earlier plan, according to F.C. City Manager Wyatt Shields.

But almost all members of the Council expressed their concern for the ability of the three popular entities adjacent to the project site — Clare and Don’s, Thompson’s and the State Theater — to weather the whole thing.

Stern said that the new plan to address that involves building out the project in two stages, involving the demolition of the 100 N. Washington building there now (it used to be known as the Robertson Building) and the relocation of the public parking to that space reducing the time when the parking will not be available from two years to eight months.

During that eight months, Stern added, alternative parking provisions will be arranged allowing for valet parking and the use of lots controlled by other businesses across N. Washington. “All hands are being engaged in finding a workable solution,” Stern said. Once completed, the project will replace all the parking spaces currently available, including through the dedication of paid public parking in the Whole Foods garage.

While the new version increases the number of residential units from 339 to 350, there will be office space included. Most of the residential units will be studio and small onebedroom. The ratio of commercial to residential in the project will be 16 percent to 84 percent.

Roughly a third of the area of the new plan is dedicated to green space, including a 3,500 square foot plaza in front of the Whole Foods right at the Broad and Washington intersection and a proffer of $50,000 for the improvement of the intersection, itself.

“This is a great project for the City, better than our submission of 2018,” Stern said, adding that Whole Foods is eager to move as fast as possible and is also very excited about the plan.

“We need to hear from the three existing venues there that they’re satisfied with the arrangements,” City Council member Letty Hardi said, a point of view reflected in the remarks by her colleagues Ross Litkenhous, David Snyder, Phil Duncan and Marybeth Connelly.

In also concurring, Mayor David Tarter said that the replaced public parking in the new project will need to be clearly identified as designated for the public.

In other developments from the Monday City Council work session: • The Council heard a report from City Police Lieutenant Dimitri Assayev on the work of the committee formed to assess how the City may move forward in the wake of State House Bill 421 that was passed and signed in Richmond this spring to give local jurisdictions greater latitude on possession of guns in public places. Led by Councilman Snyder, other Council members shared the view that the most restrictive allowable options should be chosen.

“We’ve asked Richmond for years exactly what we’ve now been granted, and we should choose the option that is the most balanced, effective

and restrictive,” Councilman Snyder said. Councilman Hardi added, “This is in response to a long-standing request by us to live our values.”

The Council will take up the matter at its meeting this Monday, July 27.

Conti nued on Page 18

Status Update on Wednesday, July 22 City of Falls Church

Date Cases Hospitalizations Deaths # Cases per 100,000 People

Wedneday, July 22 54* 10 6* 365.6 Monday, July 20 55 10 7 372.3 Wednesday, July 15 54 10 7 365.6 Monday, July 13 53* 10 7* 358.8 Wednesday, July 8 54* 11 8 365.6 Monday, July 6 55 11 8 372.3 Wednesday, July 1 52* 11 8 352.0 Monday, June 29 56* 11 8 379.1

*NOTE: These numbers went down as the Virginia Department of Health found that the individuals lived in the Fairfax County part of Falls Church, not the City of Falls Church.

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